Trigger a custom Mailchimp Automation for your Code Email

There are two types of automation that we support. "Signup" automations and custom "API 3.0" triggered automations. The main difference is that "Signup" automation is triggered by Mailchimp immediately after a new subscriber has been added. The "API 3.0" triggered automation is never sent by Mailchimp automatically, it only sends once a third-party app triggers it to be sent. In the case of Coupon Carrier, this is immediately after a code has been added to the new subscriber.

If you are unsure which type is correct for you, we suggest that you use the simpler standard Mailchimp welcome automation. The complete guide on how to set that up is available here.

To trigger a custom API 3.0 automation, the following steps are needed:

Add a merge field to your email list

Create a MailChimp automation with a custom trigger

Configure Coupon Carrier to trigger the automation

How does it work?

When Coupon Carrier receives a notification that a new subscriber has been added to your list it picks one of the available unique codes and applies it to the subscribers merge field that you’ve configured. It then triggers the selected automation to be sent to the subscriber. This means that when the email is sent it can include the code via a merge tag since that was just added to the subscriber.

Add a merge field to your email list

We need a merge tag to be able to store the unique code in the subscriber's profile. Create a merge field called COUPON of the type Text. This can be anything but in this guide, we will assume it’s named COUPON. You can also uncheck the Visible checkbox. This ensures that this field doesn’t show up in any subscribe form if you have any.

Create the MailChimp Automation

There are many types of automations in MailChimp. We want to create an automation that only sends an email when some third-party app (Coupon Carrier in this case) triggers it to be sent to a specific subscriber. Coupon Carrier works best with a specific type of automation, called Custom Event Workflow. Create a new Automated campaign and click on the Custom button to create a custom workflow.

The next step is to change the trigger to an API trigger. That way you can let Coupon Carrier trigger this email to be sent once we've added a code to the new subscriber. You can change the trigger by clicking on Change trigger and then selecting the API 3.0 trigger that's available on the Integrations tab.

Note! Once the trigger is selected you can see the trigger URL that you later need to add to Coupon Carrier. Copy the URL and save it for a later stage.

You'll probably want to change the delay to immediately as well in order to send the email immediately after it's been triggered.

The next step is to add the email content. Click the Design email button to edit the email. Proceed by entering all the details according to your needs. When you get to design your email you need to add the merge tag at the place where you want your code to be shown. A merge tag is added using the following format *|Field name|*. So in your case, you should add *|COUPON|*.

The final step is to configure Coupon Carrier to trigger this automation. Head over to your Coupon Carrier configuration and select MailChimp as the email sender:

That's it. If you have any additional questions or need any help then let us know.